Since the election will likely have been decided before I finish this post, I will probably correct course somewhere in the middle. At the instant, though, Peter Wehner in the Times is asking a question that many pundits have been asking "Is There Life After Trump?" He means specifically, "will there be a recognizable republican party after the election?" The answer, of course, is both yes and no. There will be something labeled "republican," but it will have little in common with the party of Eisenhower and really nothing in common with the party of Lincoln. Trump represents the earth quake that comes AFTER the tectonic plates have shifted, and the question for both republicans and democrats is this: how do we rebuild. If she wins, I believe a Clinton win will offer a brief respite, a time for soul searching, but I really don't believe there will be any soul searching. The republican party has so long demonized the democrats that one wonders how they could, as they say, walk it back. So the respite will be "more of the same," which is not to say, "more progressive policy making." It will be more obstructionism of the sort already promised by a man I once though reasonable -- e.g. McCain's promise to obstruct any Supreme Court nominations of Clinton. The republican party has so long demonized the democrats, and in particularly Hillary Clinton, that any victory will be seen as illegitimate from the outset. Too many now believe she has engaged in criminal activity, and even more believe she has engage in smarmy activity, that any republican actually working with a democrat, any republican caught compromising, is excoriated as if caught in flagrante delicto with the devil himself. If she loses, all bets are off. The Trump supporters and Breitbart readers will see it as both a vindication and a mandate. I have said before that I believe the republican party can better survive a Trump loss than a Trump win, and I share some of Andrew Sullivan's alarmist fears for our republic in part because his win would affirm the dark side of the force, or as Sullivan put it, "We are told we cannot use the term fascist to describe this. I’m at a loss to find a more accurate alternative."
Nevertheless, back to Wehner, he has faith that there can be a renewal of the republican party, and that "Self-renewal starts — but doesn’t end — with self-examination." He admits "it won’t be easy, given that tens of millions of Americans will vote for him and believe deeply in him," but asserts " if these forces are not defeated, what happened this year will be replicated in one form or another, and the Republican Party will continue to inflict great harm on our republic." No, it won't be easy, because, in part, the party of the right has been, to use Andrew's phrase, "spectacularly craven." In what can be seen as something of a hostile corporate takeover, Trump has co-opted the brand of the republican party, but he "has no loyalty to the party apparatus that has elevated him to a possible victory next Tuesday." Trump has loyalty to Trump, and he went about "declaring war on the Speaker of the House," because he was insufficiently loyal, not to the republican brand, but to Trump, "attacking the RNC whenever it fails to toady to him, denigrating every single rival Republican candidate, even treating his own vice-presidential nominee as someone he can openly and contemptuously contradict with impunity." There is no reason to believe such behavior won't continue after the election. Republicans may hold out hope to "control" him after the election, and support him however reluctantly "to exploit his followers in the vain and foolish delusion that they can control him in the future in ways they have not been able to in the past." Like Sullivan, I doubt it, but what Ryan sees (perhaps to his own chagrin) is the inner fascism of the conservative agenda. Albeit under different terms, they have been aiming at becoming a middle eastern state for some time, an oligarchy ostensibly rendered benign by an over-lay of christian theocracy. What he got was a candidate aiming at becoming a Russian state, an oligarchy supported by an over-lay of racial and ethnic and gender resentments, but the greatest of all resentments is the resentment of the condescending elites, like Wehner, like Sullivan, who presume with all their book learning to tell them how to feel. The Times can run a story headline "Donald Trump's Bit Bet on Less Educated Whites," and so do with a straight face, because it will affirm what their readers know, an emerging idiocracy, an anti-intellectualism raised to the level of ideology.
Wehner recognizes the trend, and suggests that the "self-examination" of the republican party must begin with its "anti-intellectualism." He writes that, "somewhere along the way large numbers of Republicans began to devalue serious ideas," and there are serious ideas that buttress a conservatism -- Fredrich Hayek comes to mind, along with Michael Oakeshott and Leo Strauss -- but they have been largely left behind. If the best best of the republican party is the under-educated white, it's not surprising. He quotes Chris Christie, who has devalued himself into the toady of all toadies, who said of his fellow Republicans, “I think we’ve had too many people who’ve become less interested in winning an election and more interested in winning an argument.” No one would say that today. If anything the converse is true, with woo many people who've become less interested in winning an argument, even the presidential debates, and much more interested in winning an election, if not THE election, then the many elections that will continue to give them a house and senate majority. Wehner points to the emergence of Sarah Palin, and Obama's insightful (if obvious) remark that there is a straight line between the thoughtlessness of Palin and the self-aggrandizing thoughtlessness of Trump. It goes a bit deeper, however, and reveals itself in the beautiful mind of the conspiracy theorist. Clearly, there are clever conservatives, and their ability to connect disparate dots into a far ranging and nefarious conspiracy reveals their cleverness. It could be amusing if seen as an amusement, if it were done for the lulz -- not unlike the "conspiracies" that have become a common plot device in scripted television -- a recent example being "Blindspot" that portrays the machinations of the CIA and the heroic FBI agents out to reveal them. Unfortunately, however, as Sullivan points out, the Republican media complex has enabled and promoted not only [Trump's] lies and conspiracy theories," but we have Fox news doubling down on the reporting of such respected denizens of the fourth estate as the National Enquirer, and we haven't even mentioned the millions of Breitbart readers, who are daily treated to a Mad Max version of American life. "From the poisonous propaganda of most of Fox News to the internet madness of the alt-right," Sullivan tells us, "they have all made a fortune this past decade by describing the world as a hellhole of chaos and disorder and crime for which the only possible solution is a third-world strongman." Wehner, ultimately, is correct, "a party that produces Ms. Palin as its vice-presidential nominee and Mr. Trump as its nominee is at war with reason," and they "have not been conservative in any sane meaning of that term for many, many years," as Sullivan contends. "They are nihilist revolutionaries of the far right in search of a galvanizing revolutionary leader. And they have now found their man."
One cannot expect "nihilist revolutionaries" to act moderately, and Wehner next step in "self-examination" is the "political recklessness" of the republican party. As he put it, "Over the years a large number of Republicans began to dismiss the craft of governing. They embraced a style of politics characterized by unceasing combativeness, intemperance and a deep hostility toward compromise and temperamental moderation." Indeed. One might take a more benign view, and see an American public more moderate (and mixed) in its view and its passions, but one should remember at the same time that "revolutions" need only a small contingent of deeply committed radicals, and a larger contingent of people who mostly support, who don't entirely disagree, who are willing to go along because the status quo is ... well ... not so great, could be better, and maybe it is time to "shake things up a bit." In the meantime, as Sullivan points out, "the feckless Democrats decided to nominate one of the most mediocre, compromised, and Establishment figures one can imagine in a deeply restless moment of anxiety and discontent." Never mind that the anxiety is mostly manufactured and the discontent is invidious, still the democrats are "advancing a bloodless rationalism that has never been a match for the tribal national passions of the right." If one thing has been clear in this election, the sorts of behavioral and verbal recklessness that would have sunk any conventional candidate, bolster Trump. The vague insinuations around her "undiscovered" emails and the equally vague assertions of quid-pro-quo around the Clinton foundation by any "rational" measure pale in comparison to the videotapes and the documented malfeasance of the Trump foundation, but again it bolsters Trump. Clinton must be "politically correct," and is excoriated for the slightest lapse, but Trump is celebrated for precisely those lapses. They reflect the "tribal national passions of the right," the insular racism and xenophobia of those who have little contact with or insight into "the other," the misogyny of women cowed by faith into subservience. For the heartland folk, already predisposed to conservatism, for whom things are not so great, could be better, they want a "political recklessness" to shake things up," but as the saying goes, you should be careful what you wish for, you might get it.
Wehner's wish that the conservatives become more like the liberals, "advancing a bloodless rationalism," is not misplaced, and some of us don't see it as such a bad thing. We wish the government would just be boring, get on with the business of governing, create policy to fix immigration, improve the affordability of health care, repair the infrastructure, and the list goes on, and on, but the actual policy that would "improve things" doesn't play as well as "blut und boden," the blood and soil of nativist nationalism. Policy reeks of expertise and elitism, of the fine print on a sales agreement for a used car, when everyone knows "they" are the problem -- the blacks on welfare to support their drug habit, the Mexican cartels importing the drugs, the feminazi's who've all but castrated real men by taking over their jobs, the sodomites who flagrantly ignore biblical warnings, and all the other "takers" looking for a way to escape old fashioned hard work. Bloodless rationalism may win the argument, but it doesn't win the election. Wehner's third area of self-reflection would be to rid the party of nativism and xenophobia. He suggests that "even now, most Republicans favor a pathway to legal status and citizenship for illegal immigrants," and that he "never believed that most of the opposition to it was based on nativism," but then too one wonder how much time he spends with the under-educated, particularly those in out-of-the-way places like Mountain Home. The residents are not bad people. They don't really wish anyone any ill will. They consider themselves a christian people and want to treat their neighbors kindly, but "those" people are not "neighbors." They really don't want to "fit into" the neighborhood, speak English, and become "like us." So they kinda-sorta agree that Mexicans, and especially those refugees, those Syrians, who don't even accept Christ, should just stay home and fix their own problems. They do mostly agree that people here illegally should be sent home. When they are treated with headlines that read "East Texas Child Murdered by Previously Deported Illegal Alien," they especially agree that those people should be "kept out" and if it takes a wall, well, so be it. Though he over-states the case just a bit, Sullivan again gets it. "Clinton’s rallies have been pale copies of the bloodthirsty mobs Trump has marshaled and whipped into ever-higher states of frenzy," he writes, adding that she failed to "offer a compelling, simple, and positive reason for her candidacy. Only a party utterly divorced from half the country it seeks to represent could have made such a drastic error of hubris and complacency."
I'm not sure "hubris and complacency" captures it, however. There is a whiff of entitlement around Clinton, but it is nothing compared to the full on stink of Trump's hubris. There is a whiff of incredulity about Clinton, and it could easily be misinterpreted as the complacency of arrogance. Things actually are "better" for most Americans, and it isn't unreasonable to assume that, following the same path, things would get "even better." So why is it so many Americans want to simply chuck it entirely, and start over? Why isn't "more of the same" a good thing? There isn't a rational answer to that question, only an answer from the depths of emotion, and nothing plays like fear and loathing, and the conservative party has taught us, over and over and over and over again, that nothing is to be more feared or more loathed than the very government Trump wants to lead. His promise to "drain the swamp" isn't rational, isn't really feasible, and those who believe Trump is the "redeemer," that the mud will be paved over and a glorious Trump Tower will rise out of the mud, are clearly deluding themselves. Still it's a compelling vision. In the absence of actual policy prescriptions, the bloodless rationalism that plops a thousand pages of legalese on the table, it can be whatever one wants it to be. One can believe, along with one Trump supporter, that he will bring back the bowling alley and the drive in, "places where people could have real fun" -- that he will make America white again and put the police "back in charge" -- that he will bring back the jobs lost to China and Mexico and make that bass boat affordable -- that he will put America first and bring my son home -- whatever heaven on earth one wants, one can have. Nothing in his past behavior, however, suggests he can or will drain the swamp. A good deal in his past behavior suggests that he simply wants to be the biggest alligator in the swamp, and it is astonishing, speaking as a liberal, to the point of absolute incredulity, just how many people are willing to make his dreams come true. If he is elected, the American people will be disappointed. Best scenario, nothing much will change, and we will struggle through four years of conservative policy that will fail to deliver on its promises, just as it failed in Kansas, just as it failed in Louisiana, just as it has failed throughout rural America. Worst scenario, the government will be decimated, and we will have our own version of Kim Jong-il, our own version of Putin, for as long as he wants to play the part, with a cadre of potential Kim Jong Un's (Junior, Barron, Tiffany, Eric, and Ivanka) all waiting in the wings.
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